Spain: Know your onions

Calcots are at the heart of a unique Spanish autumn festival, says Rohan Daft

12:01AM GMT 28 Oct 2003

Just an hour's drive from Barcelona lies the small town of Valls. Where Barcelona has its nose forever to the grindstone, Valls - population 20,000 - potters along unfussed, happy with its lot.

Valls is known locally for two things. First, its castells, 50ft human towers that teams of castellers competitively (and tirelessly) construct in the summer. And second, and more important, its calcots, which set the agenda throughout the winter.

Calcots are a type of onion and Valls is very much a calcot town. They were invented - in so far as an onion can be invented - in the town in 1898 by a farmer called Xat de Bernaiges, who dug up his white onions five months after he had sown them and then replanted them. As the shoots lengthened, he built a protective stocking of earth around them. The result was a long, sweet-tasting onion and - today - a major industry.

In 1995, the Catalan government granted the "Calcot de Valls" denomination status, limiting its production to the four counties that surround Valls. Today, 31 million are produced every season, which runs from late November until March. That's a lot of onions.

During the calcot season you are left in no doubt as to the town's business. Every road is festooned with arrowed signs and posters displaying the legend "Calcotades". These are calcot feasts and involve colossal quantities of calcots being barbecued - inside or out, depending on the weather - over piles of seasoned grapevines.

Most local restaurants offer calcots in season - the tourist office at Carrer de la Cort 1 (0034 97 760 1050) has a good list - but the Masia Bou, just off the N240 to Montblanc, offers a particularly rustic and authentic experience. In Masmolet, try Cal Ganxo (C. Esglesia 13) for more of the same.

If you are going to pick one weekend to indulge, then go for the last one in January, which sees the Gran Fiesta de la Calcotada, when 30,000 people descend on Valls to talk, party and - more to the point - to eat onions.

The festivities begin at about 10am in the Placa del Blat, where, overshadowed by the impressive town hall, you'll find the competitions for the best calcots and accompanying salbitxada sauce. On one flank are trestle tables at which women will be making their sauces. White china bowls before them contain the ingredients - almonds, hazelnuts, garlic, tomatoes, parsley, pimentos and breadcrumbs. These - or any number of them, depending on how you like your sauce - are mixed with olive oil and a good glug of vinegar.

The form is to pass along the table dipping pieces of bread into the sauces. Awaiting the judges on the other side of the square are more tables bearing large bunches of freshly pulled, muddied calcots. You should inspect closely, but prodding is not encouraged.

Two minutes away in the Placa del Oli three piles of vine cuttings are being set ablaze. Two women stand at a table topping and tailing bunch after bunch of calcots - they are never washed - ready for the barbecues. Then, two men wearing scarlet Catalan barretina (hats) lay the calcots lengthways and thatchlike atop what look like two large iron bedsteads and, before the flames have fully subsided, lift them onto the piles of vine cuttings. At this, yellow-green clouds of smoke billow upwards and fill the square.

Watching is a patient queue of people, pink tickets in hand, waiting for the end result. They are a friendly bunch and the talk is of calcots. One woman tells me, in passing, that, on average, eight cloves of garlic are used to make four servings of sauce.

Twenty minutes later the first batch of calcots, wilted and blackened, is ready and the queue begins to surrender its tickets and pick up white plastic carrier bags. Each ticket costs five euros and buys a bag that contains a dozen foil-wrapped calcots, a pot of sauce, a half bottle of the local co-operative's hearty red, a piece of bread, a napkin, an orange and, blessings of blessings, a white cotton bib.

The way to eat a calcot is to grip firmly on the inner stalks at the top end with one hand and pull firmly but gently down on the outer stalks towards the root with the other. Done successfully, the outer, charred, layers come cleanly away to reveal the sweet, soft, inner onion. The freshly de-sheathed calcot is then dipped in the sauce and hurriedly consumed, sword-swallower style. A good sauce is that one that clings, with the vinegar and garlic adding bite and the nuts a bit of texture.

To go with the calcots, there is meat - another barbecue in the square is devoted to sausages, lamb chops and black puddings. All around, knots of people stand at makeshift tables or squat in the street with greasy, blackened fingers and wine- and sauce-splattered bibs eating and drinking.

Make your way down Carrer de la Cort, the main street, and past the Capella de Roser to El Pati, the main square. This is home to the calcot-eating contest - 20 or so men in white bibs standing on a stage swallowing as many calcots as they can in 45 minutes. The pace is steady and involves a well-practised unsheathing movement, a dip in the sauce and a quick swallow. The most recent winner managed 198.

By late afternoon, the streets and squares are awash with spent onion skins, empty wine bottles and chop bones. Thousands of people wearing black-, red- and orange-stained bibs have had their fill and are sloping off. Tomorrow, it's back to business as usual for another year. Molt mes que una ceba, as they say in Valls. Much more than an onion.

Valls has little in the way of accommodation, but can easily be reached from Barcelona. Magic of Spain (0870 888 0222; www.magictravelgroup.co.uk) offers three nights' b & b in Barcelona from £391 in November, December and January, excluding Christmas and New Year, including flights and transfers.